Number One for me at the moment are the Subway Sect. They've got some good ideas. The Slits are good, too. Palmolive on drums! She's the female Jerry Nolan. But like everyone, they need to do thirty gigs in thirty days and they would be a different group. Then they'd be great. The same with us.

Captured on a Peel Session, the Slits' originally raw and raucous live sound was cleaned up and polished by the time of their debut album. Their Dennis Bovell-produced debut album Cut was released in September 1979 on Island Records, with Neneh Cherry joining as additional vocalist.[1] The album's sleeve art depicted the band naked, except for mud and loincloths.[1] Palmolive left the band around this time: it is often claimed that this was partly because she did not like this artwork,[5] including by Palmolive herself,[6] but according to Viv Albertine[7] Palmolive had been asked to leave the band before that, and anyway does not appear on the record.

Ari Up and Tessa Pollitt reformed the band with new members in 2005, as Viv Albertine was unwilling to rejoin, and in 2006 released the EPRevenge of the Killer Slits.[2] The EP featured former Sex Pistols member Paul Cook and Marco Pirroni (formerly of Adam and the Ants, and Siouxsie and the Banshees) as both musicians and co-producers. In fact, Cook's daughter Hollie is a member of the current line-up, singing and playing keyboards. Other members of the reformed band were No (of The Home Office) on guitar, German drummer Anna Schulte, and Adele Wilson on guitar.[8]

The band toured the United States for the first time in twenty-five years during 2006's 'States of Mind' tour. In 2007, they toured Australia as well as returning to the US, where they opened for Sonic Youth at New York'sMcCarren Park Pool.[9] In their first visit to Japan, the band undertook a short tour in October 2007.

In 2008, the band again toured America. Adele Wilson left the band and No was replaced by the American guitarist Michelle Hill. In November 2008, the band played Ladyfest in Manchester, and visited London Astoria the following month. In January 2009 The Slits' MySpace page listed former guitarist Viv Albertine as one of the group's current members; however Albertine's own MySpace blog states that she only rejoined to play two shows.

A full-length album entitled Trapped Animal was released in 2009,[11] and the band continued to perform live.

Group founder Ari Up died in October 2010.[12][13] The band's final work, the video for the song "Lazy Slam" from Trapped Animal, was released posthumously according to Ari Up's wishes.[14]

In October 2010 Viv Albertine announced via Twitter that she and Tessa Pollitt intend to release the "last ever Slits song", titled "Shoulda Coulda Woulda" from 1981 on cassette tape with hand-drawn covers.[15]